The original football field ran perpendicular to today's configuration, and the fifty yards of gridiron nearest the current scoreboard are essentially the result of a substantial landfill operation by Joseph M. Crowley during the mid-1930s.

The above landfill involved several men and a horse to gradually level the countless truckloads of dirt, rocks, bricks, concrete, and asphalt (each load cost La Salle about twenty-five cents).

The first collegiate football game held at the stadium occurred on 1 November 1936, in which La Salle defeated fellow Christian Brothers' college (St. Mary's of Minnesota), 47–12.

During the Second World War, thirty or so German prisoners-of-war (housed in the nearby Pennsylvania National Guard Armory) were also periodically brought to the stadium for exercise, usually soccer.

He began a law career, but at the age of thirty-four he exchanged it for a future in finance when he was appointed as a counsel in the receivership of the old Real Estate Trust Co. McCarthy went on to become President of the Philadelphia Sugar Co. and also an officer or director of a dozen large firms.